The Marksmen
by I Brake For Bishounen Boys
Summary: A huge crossover that will involve all the archers I can think of. Chapter Two: Clint
1. Chapter 1

_My archer!verse. For shits and giggles. Suggestions are more than welcome._

_Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. This is one big derivative thing._

Merida

Nobody was quite sure where she came from, but when the Doombots had attacked New York, Princess Merida acquitted herself with intimidating aplomb with naught but a wooden bow and arrows with flint tips. That said, she suffered an injury at the hands of one of the Doombots, and was brought back to the Tower after the battle. Now she had permanent residence at the Tower, where she tried to acclimate herself to New York life with degrees of success that ranged from Cap to Thor.

In short, she wasn't very good at assimilation. Not at all. Even Thor looked at her with some pity when she tried to work the voice-command toaster manually. Tony, who'd done his very best to adapt the facilities in the Avengers Tower for his guests who were either temporally or universally displaced, was baffled by how a relatively intelligent girl couldn't figure out hot and cold taps.

When she wasn't at the shooting range, Merida hung around the labs in the tower. Bruce watched from his equations as she limped to the giant screen where his latest equation was tabulating.

"What's this then?" she asked.

"A cure, hopefully."

"A cure for your... your curse?" Merida asked, eyeing Bruce with an appraising look.

"No," Bruce said shortly. "It's for something a bit more common than gamma mutation."

"I see."

Merida didn't look alarmed at all, Bruce noticed. She actually seemed crestfallen. He wondered how to explain to someone who was literally from the Dark Ages that he hadn't been cursed or possessed, that he could control the Hulk. If people in the purportedly enlightened twenty-first century still had trouble wrapping their heads around it, what hope was there for the teenaged girl from the time of_ Macbeth_?

"It's just, my mum," Merida said, a cautious bent in her voice. "She's had a curse laid on her, and I thought maybe since I am in the company of warlocks and whatnot, I could pick something up, while I'm here and all, to make her better?"

Well, that was definitely a development. The potentially heartwrenching conversation that would have followed was cut short by Tony Stark coming in.

"Well check it out, the Warrior Princess and Dr Jekyll together in one room. And who says literary dreams don't come true?" he said. "How's the leg, princess? Are you sure you should be up and walking?"

Merida gave Stark a scathing look, and said, "I'm going to the range. Thank you for your company, Doctor Banner."

"This is why I'm never having kids," Tony said once she was out of earshot. "I don't even know what I said to offend her royal highness this time."

"She's not from here. She's having a tough time adjusting."

"Steve wasn't from here either, at first."

"And he hated your guts, too. Tony, face it, you're not exactly the greatest welcoming committee to the twenty-first century," Bruce muttered.

"That's because I'm actually living in the twenty-second," Tony said, and started messing around on the nearest touch screen. "Though if the Tower starts getting any more visits from the likes of Renaissance Faire, people might start to doubt it."

"You think this will happen again," Bruce said, not even trying to make his statement sound like a question.

"Far be it for me to predict the vagaries of time and space. But quite honestly, if there's any place where continuity is worn thin, it's here," said Stark, tapping the touch screen irritated. "I'm pretty sure her mere presence is throwing all of my tech out of whack."

"You know, I was starting to have suspicions myself. It's impossible to mess up a voice-activated toaster," Bruce said, putting his glasses on.

"No kidding," Tony said. "I'd love to know why, though."

Outside, Merida listened. Though she had more than intended to go to the range, the distance had suddenly seemed insurmountable, and her leg pained her greatly, so she had to lean against the wall. The surgeon had promised her she wouldn't lose the leg, but sometimes it hurt enough that she wanted to take it off anyways.

"Do you require assistance?" asked a booming voice. Merida gratefully met the glance of Thor.

"Just a wee bit of pain," she promised, but was nonetheless picked up by the towering warrior.

"I was about to have pop tarts in the kitchen. Would you join me?" he asked.

"I suppose I have no choice," Merida grumbled, and spent the rest of the trip to the kitchen in undignified silence.

Pop tarts were delicious, to her consternation.

* * *

"Correct me if my understanding of the situation is incomplete, Stark," Maria Hill said. "You have a minor in your tower who claims to be a princess of a mythical Scottish kingdom from nine hundred years ago. Is that right?"

"I also have someone in my tower who claims to be the Norse god of thunder. I don't see the problem," Tony shrugged.

"The problem is that while we've cleared Thor's origins without too much of a reasonable doubt, your Scottish princess comes from literally nowhere in history. The kingdom of DunBroch doesn't exist. For all we know, you picked up a mentally disturbed sixteen-year-old girl who happens to be good at archery," Hill said. "People are going to talk."

"People always talk. Honestly, shouldn't S.H.I.E.L.D be less worried about PR and more worried about the fact that the only thing standing in between Doctor Doom and a full invasion of New York was the Avengers and a sixteen-year-old girl who happened to be good at archery?" Tony smirked. "She nearly had her leg ripped clean off."

"Using the child endangerment _that you instigated_ in order to derail the conversation I'm attempting to have with you is not going to work, Stark. Tomorrow we're sending a shrink to Avengers Tower to assess her mental state. If our psychologist finds that staying in your clubhouse is in any way affecting her physical recovery or mental health, you will be very,_ very_ sorry."

"Yes ma'am."


	2. Chapter 2

_Next chapter._

_Disclaimer: Nothing is mine._

Clint

Clint watches Merida fire arrow after arrow in the shooting range. For someone who can't be much older than sixteen, it's clear that she's been shooting all her life. Even though her leg is broken and compromises her centre of balance, her shots are still true and hit their mark with stunning accuracy each time. He's impressed.

Eventually, Merida puts the bow down, and looks at Clint.

"It feels different than my old wood one," she says briefly. "A bit too fancy for my taste, if you must know."

"We all have our preferences," Clint says. He's always been one for the sleek high-tech set, but he reckons that it's only because he's a little boy at heart who wants the fancy toys. Merida has the mindset of someone who's lived in a warrior culture, someone who doesn't have time for frills even if she claims to be royalty. "We'll find you a wooden one."

"In DunBroch it is the archer's responsibility to carve one of his own, from a tree of his own choosing," Merida mutters, "Though all around me I see only forests of metal."

"There are forests, still." Unbelievably. "I'll bring you when you're better for walking."

"Thank you," Merida says, and reaches for her crutch. The leg would heal with more alacrity if she wasn't as adverse to bed rest as she was. Apparently, eleventh century Scotland had a far more effective and proactive attitude towards injuries which usually involves amputation and getting back on one's feet as soon as possible.

"You know, when I was home, I wanted so much for things to change. And now that they are changed, I miss everything about home," Merida admits as she sinks to her seat with a sigh of relief. "I wonder how I could have gone against my mother on so many things when I don't even know my mind now."

"Sometimes we need to spend time away from family before we can make our own choices," Clint says. He knows this from experience, knows how little a comfort the fact is. Merida says nothing in response, and after a few uncomfortable moments, he decides it's best to leave her. He doesn't notice the crackling in the atmosphere until he hears Merida's cry and turns around.

The firing range looks as though it's melted into a smudge in the air. Through it, Clint thinks he can see trees, a forest.

"Merida," he barks, "we don't know what that is. Get away."

For a moment, she falters, and Clint thinks that he's going to have to extract her personally. Then she turns around and gets out of what used to be the shooting range as fast as she can.

"JARVIS, what just happened?" Clint asks as soon as they're out of sight of the thing.

"It appears that a trans-dimensional portal has opened up in the shooting range, Mr Barton. I will alert Mr Stark immediately," JARVIS says in his usual deadpan.

"Does this happen often?" Clint demands.

"It has been happening with increasing regularity, but hardly on this level."

"Well that's just great."

Clint is getting a pang of nostalgia for the old days, which is kind of horrible. When he looks at Merida, he can see the same sort of unhappiness in her eyes. Maybe he's not cut out for babysitting, or teenagers, but he knows when he should offer words to a fellow marksman.

"You're going to be all right," he says. "With your skills, you can survive anything."

"I'm not worried about my survival," Merida says, "I have family, and I need to get back to them. The range is my only way back."

"You're not from there," someone mutters from behind them, and Clint knows, knows that things are about to get a lot more complicated. He turns around and sees a dark-skinned girl with a bow in her hand and a quiver on his back. Her look is grim, as though she's been fighting for her life since she was born.

When it comes to cosmic portals, Clint knows better than to believe in coincidences. Two archers coming through portals in as many months means somebody big is planning something bigger.


End file.
